“I love you for all the men I do not love / and for those I adore.” (“Encore.”)

Marilyn Kallet’s new collection of poetry How Our Bodies Learned by Black Widow Press (2018) is now available. Her seventh book of lyric poems offers a collection of love poems and sensual blues that enfold more difficult poems of witness. Each of the three chapters takes a hard look at historical events: the terrorist attack in Paris, November 2015; gun violence in Orlando and San Bernardino; the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. But Kallet is also a poet of dreams and humor. She reassures her readers with songs of healing and resilience. The influence of poets such as Baudelaire, Eluard, and William Carlos Williams adds resonance. “What Power Has Love?” Kallet asks in section One, after witnessing the events in Paris. This power, love: to sing, survive, and to “love harder.” You can order from amazon.com now.

“All of Marilyn Kallet’s poems are falling-in-love poems. This collection is no exception.” -Joy Harjo

Marilyn Kallet’s The Love That Moves Me is a collection of love poems inspired by Dante’s Inferno, as well as by Rimbaud’s relationship with Verlaine, and by Orpheus and Eurydice. These days Beatrice and Dante find themselves in France, Indiana, and in East Tennessee, bickering at NASCAR. Love is the unifying factor, song is the vehicle, descent is a constant, with re-emergence thankfully part of the narrative. Surrealist humor abounds as Benjamin Péret bursts some Romantic bubbles with his exclamations. This is a sensual and resonant collection offering hints of heaven in the love lyrics, touching upon a range of emotions and forms, from traditional pantoums to experimental verse. You can order from amazon.com now.

In addition to poetry, her works include translations, anthologies, personal essays, criticism and children’s books.

Upcoming Events

June 27: Mayor Madeline Rogero announces Marilyn Kallet is named Poet Laureate of the City of Knoxville.

“I am so pleased to announce Marilyn’s appointment as our next Poet Laureate,” Mayor Rogero said. “She is a great and gifted writer, and she has been a champion for poetry’s ability to bring people together and help heal individuals and communities. She loves Knoxville and East Tennessee, and I can’t wait to read and hear the work she will produce as Poet Laureate.”